Limericks

Coming up, it's Lightning Fill In The Blank, but first it's the game where you have to listen for the rhyme. If you'd like to play on air, call or leave a message at 1-888-WAIT-WAIT...that's 1-888-924-8924. Or you can click the contact us link on our website waitwait.npr.org. There you can find out about attending our weekly live shows at the Chase Bank Auditorium in Chicago and our upcoming show in Phoenix, Arizona on February 13. You can also check out the latest How To Do Everything podcast. This week, Mike and Ian tell you how to make eggnog fit for George Washington. Hi, you're on WAIT, WAIT...DON'T TELL ME!

CHUPP: I'm actually visiting family for the holidays, so I'm enjoying myself.

SAGAL: Oh, OK. Where are you usually from?

CHUPP: I live in Huntington, Indiana which is near Fort Wayne.

SAGAL: So you would leave the winter of Indiana and you head down to the warmth of Texas and you're sad about it?

CHUPP: Well, it just doesn't feel right.

SAGAL: You're very young, aren't you?

CHUPP: Yes.

SAGAL: OK.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Hannah, welcome to the show. Carl Kasell is going to perform for you three news-related limericks, with the last word or phrase missing of course. Your job, fill in that last word or phrase. Do that two times, you'll be a winner. Here is your first limerick.

CARL KASELL: On screen Downton Abbey looks posh, but in a bad smell we all slosh. Though the cast includes servants, this fact is unnerving, the costumes do not get a...

CHUPP: ...wash.

SAGAL: Exactly right.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: It turns out that Downton Abbey smells like Downtown Abbey.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: According to cast members, in a recent interview, the costumes that they wear are so legitimately, you know, early 20th century that you can't wash them. So as it turns out, class divisions are not the only reason the characters are keeping their distance.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Stay tuned, things get even worse next season when Lady Edith invents hot yoga.

(LAUGHTER)

ROY BLOUNT, JR. AUTHOR: I think personally that Downton Abbey began to smell last season.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: All right. Here is your next limerick.

KASELL: For our gather and hunt avocation, we cavemen need good information. Since I found a broker who's not mediocre, my cave has a primo...

CHUPP: ...location?

SAGAL: Yes indeed.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: As Ogg, the caveman once said, the three most important things in real estate are location, location and grunt!

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: British Archeologists have discovered that just like modern condo man, ancient caveman used to go house hunting. Some amenities were particularly appealing to cavemen-wall to wall dirt, granite everything-tops...

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: ...and fireplaces, which in those days was just the place that really hurt when you sat on it.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: (Unintelligible) a caveman realtor like to have that fur toga except it's yellow.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: And they'd be constantly lying about the quality of the cave to get people to buy it. Well, this cave has a beautiful southern exposure. That's where the hole is.

(LAUGHTER)

TOM BODETT: That drips only when it rains.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Here's your last limerick.

KASELL: My adventures were quite hyperbolic. Six martinis, and I would still frolic. Now I must make amends to Goldfinger and friends. Hi. I'm James and I am...

CHUPP: ...an alcoholic.

SAGAL: Yes indeed, alcoholic.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: Scientists at Nottingham University in England took time out from trying to capture Robin Hood.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: And they tried to determine how many drinks a day James Bond consumed. So it turns out that in Ian Fleming's original novels about the spy, 007 drank an average of 45 martinis a week...